Sophia collapsed in the snow. Her body crumpled like a puppet with its strings cut, her face pressing into the cold white powder, her Pink hair spreading around her like a halo of tangled threads stained with blood.
Blood from her ears, her nose, her eyes pooled in the snow beneath her, turning it dark and crimson, spreading outward like dark wings unfurling.
Yuuta watched in horror. His small mind was still processing, still trying to understand what had just happened. He was a child. Until now, he had always been the one who collapsed, the one who fell, who broke, who needed to be saved.
He had been the subject, the experiment, the broken thing that others dragged across floors and threw into wells. He had never been the one standing. He had never been the one who had to save someone else.
He did not know what to do when someone collapsed.
